FIFTEEN
"I promise this won't take long, Timothy," Patrick said to his son when they arrived at his surgery early that Saturday morning. "And then, once we're done, we can do whatever you want this afternoon."
"Whatever I want? You promise?" Timothy asked, notable skepticism in his voice.
"Yes, yes, anything at all so I want you to spend the next hour or so thinking of something extra special for us to do."
"Yes!" The boy cheered and raced back into his father's office to play with the racecars he had brought along with him. Patrick also made sure the boy had some paper and a pen to draw on as an alternative form of entertainment. Then, he rolled up his sleeves and walked towards the storeroom shared by both the surgery and the maternity clinics housed in the community center.
Ideally, Patrick would not have been spending his day off doing work of any kind, but he also accepted that because of the nature of his job within that right community, sometimes regular working hours did not apply. In that particular case, he had every intention to inventory the storeroom at least three different points in the prior week, but each and every time an emergency case had taken priority. Unfortunately, he could not push off the need very much further, because he needed to coordinate with the nuns to make sure their order for new supply was placed by Wednesday's deadline. Fearing an emergency could come up again on Monday or Tuesday, he decided to just get it over with on the weekend and hoped it would not take him too long.
Still absentmindedly fussing with his sleeves, Patrick walked into the storeroom and jumped back half a meter from shock, for the room was not empty, but already occupied by a petite, habit-wearing individual carrying a clipboard. "Sister! Oh!" He pressed his hand to his chest, now half-laughing as his heart slammed against his ribcage. "You gave me quite a fright."
"I'm sorry," Sister Bernadette said kindly. "I wasn't sure when you would arrive so I thought I would get started."
"I didn't realize you would be coming to help," he said, as inventorying the stock room had been a task he'd volunteered to do during his last meeting with Sister Julienne.
"I know, but it turned out to be an atypically slow morning at Nonnatus, so I thought I'd help. If we work together, it'll only take half the time."
He nodded. "Right you are."
She pulled the bottom page off her clipboard and handed it to him before turning her back so she could continue reviewing the shelf she was working through.
Patrick took the page and walked slowly over to the section of the room he would be reviewing, though his thoughts were now firmly focused on the woman a few feet away. As of late, every time they spent time together, he found himself quite on edge, because the status of their relationship seemed so up in the air. To an outside observer, nothing had changed, but internally Patrick's mindset had shifted quite dramatically.
The moment of this shift was quite easy for him to pinpoint; it had been the day of the spring festival. The feelings that had rushed through him when he returned to the courtyard in front of Nonnatus to find Sister Bernadette holding Timothy on her hip had nearly knocked him over. Seeing them together that way, he could no longer deny what had been brewing inside him since the beginning of the year—possibly even before. He was in love with her—again. Perhaps a small part of him had never stopped loving her even through all the years they were separated, but now he was certain that his love for her was in full blossom like it never had been before. He simply could not see a way forward in life without the two of them being together, which, while wonderful, was slightly problematic as he remained unsure of her viewpoint on their relationship.
No question existed in his mind whether she cared for him; her actions told him that. She cared for him then as she had before and now, she cared for his son as well. She spent time with them and always seemed to go out of her way to entertain Timothy during the evenings she stayed with him. She shared meals with them and checked in with him multiple times during every clinic day they worked together. The question was not if she cared, but how much. Did she care for him as a friend? Or did her feelings run deeper? Did she remain fully committed to her life as a nun such that he might need to try and convince her how wonderful their life could be together? Or, had she been ready for a real relationship between them for some time, but was concerned he was still navigating the grieving process?
Though he remained unsure, he suspected her feelings may have been conflicted. He could certainly understand such confliction, as she had been a nun far longer than she had known him, but the fact remained: they had a connection that ran deeper than anything he had ever known. No question existed in his mind whether they would be able to build a good life together, but he also knew he would have to broach the subject for he did not think she would be so bold.
He spent the next fifteen minutes marking down how many boxes of various sizes of gauze that needed ordered until a clattering sound behind him drew his attention. He turned to see that Sister Bernadette was bent over, picking up some spare nurses uniforms from where they had fallen to the floor. The clattering sound had evidently come from her clipboard when she put it on the tile floor. As he watched her, Patrick found himself strangely transported back to many years earlier, thinking about one very specific moment between them that he had not thought about in quite some time.
"Do you know what this reminds me of?"
"What?"
"Back in Rome, when we were in the storeroom and you toppled that-"
"Excuse me!" She interrupted him as she piled the uniforms back on their correct shelf, "I did nothing of the sort!"
He smirked and could not stop himself from teasing her a bit further. "It fell when you touched it."
She gaped at him, incredulous. "A butterfly could have offset that rickety thing!"
He chuckled and then gave his head a little shake. "That was such a mess, and it took ages to set right again. It was one of my favorite days there."
"Because it took you away from the patients?"
"Because I was able to spend so much time with you." He hadn't intended to say those words, but as they spilled out of his mouth, he didn't regret them. Instead, he felt a tingle at the base of his neck, and he knew—he knew—that was the moment they'd been waiting for. Now, he only needed to summon the courage to make the most heartfelt confession of his life.
After taking in a slow breath to steady himself, he asked, "Do you ever think about our time there? In Rome?"
She bent over casually, picked up her clipboard, and held the base of it against her stomach while cradling the top against her left forearm. "Not usually. God keeps my attention on the present, not the past."
He allowed himself a moment to travel back to those warm summer nights on the balcony with her. Though he had struggled quite a bit in those days, hindsight provided him the gift of realizing that each and every moment with her had led him to the present day, where his feelings for her ran as deep as his soul inside of him; there was no one else in the world he was more comfortable around.
"I think about it sometimes. Not the death, horrific injuries, or suffering, but about you. Getting to know you. Spending time with you. I think about the time we spent on the balcony. Every night we'd stand out there talking, waiting for the stars to appear overhead. I sometimes wonder if the hospital is still there or if they razed the building to vanquish the ghosts. Mostly, I remember how grateful I was that you kept me sane every day when I felt on the brink of madness. And I think…" His chest tightened as the realization washed over him. His heart rate steadily increasing, he gazed deeply into her eyes as he confessed, "I think if you hadn't left when you did, I would have asked you to marry me."
He heard her sharp intake of breath and watched as she looked back towards the supply shelves. "You shouldn't say that."
"Why? It's true." He took a step towards her, lowering his voice so that it was just barely above a whisper. He knew from her reaction that he had to nudge her, but he had to do so with utmost care and delicacy. "Tell me you've never thought about it."
She put the clipboard down atop the spare uniforms and gazed over at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity, so he pushed a bit further.
"Tell me you have never once thought about us that way. Tell me you do not feel the same." He let the words hang in the air. He could see the rise and fall of her chest had grown a bit more rapid, but she said nothing, so he prompted with, "You can't, can you?"
Finally, after a few more seconds of heavy breathing, he could see the tears welling in her eyes and she asked gently, "What are you doing?"
He gave a little shrug and confessed, "I've tried to keep it in, but I cannot any longer. I cannot pretend I don't see how you care for me, for my son. I cannot pretend I don't know you do all these things even though they violate your vows."
Truly, he hadn't known. He'd learned a little bit about the way nuns lived their life from Sister Bernadette while they were in Rome, but he'd never quizzed her too much about it. Also, it seemed the guidelines followed by the nuns of Nonnatus varied slightly from those in Italy, whether because it was a different order or because wartime dictated it, he was unsure. Over the prior half year, he had learned more details from both her and Sister Julienne, but until recently he had known nothing about the one specific rule she was violating so frequently.
Her brow wrinkled. "What are you talking about?"
"You're not permitted to take meals away from your sisters. I didn't know that until two weeks ago."
A frown crossed her face, and she gazed down towards their feet. "Did Sister Julienne tell you?"
"Sister Monica Joan." When she gazed at him curiously, he continued his explanation, "She mentioned it to one of the shop clerks as I was trying to negotiate a truce after her latest sticky-fingered episode."
One of the stranger parts of his life in Poplar involved interaction with the eldest sister of Nonnatus. For the most part she was harmless, but she could become troublesome during the occasions on which she had trouble with her mind. She was forgetful, which would have been expected of someone her age, but her episodes could sometimes be extreme, particularly when she was found wandering around the streets in nothing but her nightwear or undergarments. She also had the tendency to shoplift small items and stash them in her room. Typically, Sister Julienne delt with these incidents, but he'd been made aware of them when the sister had asked him to examine the elder woman.
On the day in question, he had been on his way to an appointment when he'd heard a ruckus from a nearby shop. Upon seeing Sister Monica Joan, he decided to see what was going on, and discovered she'd been caught trying to steal. He tried his best to explain to the shop keeper that the elder woman was not in the best mental state, and it would be best if the sister simply returned the item, and all was forgiven. The shopkeeper had been hesitant, and Sister Monica Joan had gone on a long, winding speech about all the things she might do to make it up to him, one of which being invite him to dinner, because she had to eat dinner with her sisters.
Given her mental state at that moment, Patrick almost ignored the statement and assumed it to be false, but a niggling sensation in his gut told him to follow up. As he walked the sister home, he asked her about it, and she explained that the nuns were not permitted to take meals away from their sisters, but they were allowed to invite others to dine with them. Upon hearing this information, Patrick's mind began to spin. He'd thought about all the times over the prior few months that Sister Bernadette had dined with he and Timothy and found himself quite shocked. He always heard her speak about needing to return to Nonnatus for prayer or needing to do things in a certain way because of her allegiance to the life she had committed herself to, so why then had she violated the rule of dining only with her sisters? He could think of no reason but one.
Her gaze dropped towards the floor as she said, "Oh, I see."
"Why do you do it?"
She turned away from him and said tersely, "I will stop."
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. "I don't want you to stop. I'm asking you why you take such care to abide by the rules of your order, except when it comes to us."
"I don't know!" She spoke with such force that it startled him, and he pulled his hand back as she spun around, throwing her arms out to her sides. "I don't know! I don't why I can't stop even though I know it isn't God's will."
"What isn't?"
She gazed up at him tearfully as she admitted, "Having a life with you. He doesn't want that for me."
His brow wrinkled with a mixture of shock and confusion. "You can't be serious," he said, but from the look on her face it was very evident that she was serious—incredibly serious. Her distress was palpable as she clutched her hands to her chest. Deep-running despair was etched onto her face, yet Patrick could feel nothing but confusion. Was this truly the reason? Had she been holding herself back all along because she believed God was against their union? What would have caused such a belief? He simply could not think of any reason, for from his viewpoint God's opinion of them was entirely obvious.
"I…I don't understand," he continued. "How I see something so plainly and you cannot when you are the one who talks to God many times a day?"
"What do you mean?" she asked in a tone that indicated such confusion, he felt a surge of emotion coarse through him.
"Three times! Three times He has brought us together against all odds. Across continents and war. Death and destruction. Pain and loss. And yet here we are—together once again, so what conclusion is there to be drawn other than he is putting us in each other's path because we are meant to be together."
What other explanation could there be? Two British nationals coming across each other behind Italian lines seemed nearly impossible, yet they had found each other. Then, to have those same two individuals assigned to the same Allied hospital when only one of them was a member of a military seemed impossible once again. Finally, they had not only run across each other in a city as big as London, but they had once again been employed in the same place. Call it fate or God's will—regardless, it seemed something even grander had to have been responsible.
"He brought us together in Italy and helped us save each other. We escaped safely through the night against all odds. If that didn't seal our fate, then our time together in Rome surely did. And if not that, this. The last seven months of you and I becoming a family. I have never known your real name, but I love you for all that you are."
Tears slipped down her cheeks and she gave her head a little shake. "Patrick…"
Unable to stop the momentum of his confessions, he reached out and picked up her right hand. She didn't shy away from him, so he let his hand drift up her arm so it could curl around her elbow. With his other hand, he mirrored the action, sliding it up her left arm until he rested near her shoulder. "You are the truest friend I have ever known. I simply cannot imagine living any more days without you by my side."
He watched her shut her eyes as a few more tears fell, and he felt an unstoppable urge to kiss them all away. He leaned in just close enough for his lips to hover above the shell of her ear so he could whisper "I am utterly," he moved his lips to hover over her cheek, "completely," he moved his lips so they hovered by the corner of her mouth, "hopelessly in lo-"
Before he could finish the word, she surged forward and pressed her mouth against his. The kiss lasted barely half a second before she pulled back and let out a half-sob, half-gasp. Her hands curled around his elbows as he let his hands slide across her back until the met at her spine. She leaned in so that her nose brushed his and hovered there for just a moment before their lips came together again. She moved her right hand so that it touched his jaw tenderly and she held him there for the span of two heartbeats before letting out a small whimper as she slid away.
She backed away two steps and rubbed her fingers against her cheeks to brush away the tears. "The truth is," she began, but her voice crackled so she cleared her throat and tried again. Meeting his gaze, she said, "The truth is, I fell in love with you on a hospital balcony in 1944, but the morning after I finally allowed myself to acknowledge how I really felt, I was called away. I thought that was God punishing me for putting someone else in my heart above Him. I thought He was showing me how terribly I had sinned, but I could never reconcile it." She shook her head as she pressed her clasped hands to her chest. "I couldn't because how could a love that strong have been wrong? But still he sent me away, and I spent the next year praying and trying to understand why. I thought we'd never see each other again but then you turned up here and I tried." She shut her eyes and her voice turned to one of near desperation. "I tried so hard to focus on God above all else, but…" She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I have been hopeless for quite some time."
He watched with no small amount of awe as she stepped up to him, placed both her hands on his chest and told him, "I never stopped loving you. I never could. I never will."
The rush of emotions that went through him caused tears to sting his eyes. Finally—finally—absolutely nothing was standing in their way. They were in love, and he could think of only one way to celebrate.
He slid his arms around her waist as hers slid up behind his neck. Their foreheads touched and they shared a soft laugh before he tilted his head to the side and pressed his lips against hers. She pulled her body in to his as they kissed. Their lips coming together again and again. Patrick felt as though he was floating on a cloud without a care in the world until he was brought crashing back down to reality by a noise from the hall.
"Dad!"
Startled, Patrick took a moment to extricate himself from the sister's arms, asking, "Er—what?"
"The door to the toilet is stuck and I have to go!"
"Oh…I'm coming!" He called. Then, after giving his companion a rather nervous smile, he stepped out into the hall and took a deep breath to compose himself before hurrying off to help his son.
Alone in the supply room, Sister Bernadette pressed her hands against her chest as her heart raced. She looked heavenward, convinced her heart might burst from pure joy. She didn't care if it was wrong since she still wore her habit; being kissed by Patrick was absolutely the best feeling in the world.
As each wave of emotion washed through her, she honestly wasn't sure if she was going to break out into laughter or begin sobbing with utter relief. The memory of feeling as though God was angry with her because of her feelings for Patrick was so visceral that it chased her down even then, many years later. The event had rattled her to the point where she simply could not have believed that God's intents had been misinterpreted or they had changed over the years—not without hearing another's viewpoint. She'd needed to hear Patrick tell her that they were meant to be together before she would allow herself to believe this was His intended path for them, even if she had wanted it desperately for many months.
Spending time around Patrick and Timothy had taken her right back to the place she'd been in all those years ago. Warm, lovely feelings had filled her when she was around them and she found herself nearly addicted to the joy and comfort they brought. Even though she knew it was incorrect for her to favor time with them over time with her sisters, she had simply been unable to stop! She continued to tell herself that God wanted her to help Patrick through his grief and to help Timothy thrive again after the death of his mother, but for some time she had known they would have been just fine without her. The problem was: she didn't want them to be without her. She wanted to share as many moments as she could with them. Now, it seemed she was about to begin sharing even more.
After a few minutes, Patrick returned and stood a few feet away from her wearing a besotted expression on his face. "You and I should spend time in stockrooms more often."
She couldn't help but laugh, but then rushed forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. She squeezed him as tight as she felt she could and felt his arms close around her back. The joy inside her threatened to crush her ribs with its strength, but she refused to let go. She couldn't—not after being unable to touch him for so long.
"May I know your real name now?" she heard him ask softly.
"Oh. Yes." It seemed rather silly given all that they had been through together for him to not know such a basic fact about her. She loosened their embrace so she could look up at him as she said, "It's Shelagh. Shelagh Mannion."
"Shelagh Mannion," he echoed as his smile grew wider. "You are one of the most important people in my life and I do not want to go one more day without knowing we will spend our lives together. Will you marry me?"
"Yes," she sighed before rising up on her toes so their lips could meet. He cradled her neck, parted his lips around hers and she felt as though her whole body had been set aflame. She had never before felt such an all-encompassing wave of love, and joy, and completeness. It was perfect.
He brushed their noses together as their kiss broke. "Come over for dinner. We'll tell Timothy together."
"I…" For the first time, the reality of her situation returned to her mind, and she took a half step back from him. As much as she wanted for her life with Patrick to begin right that moment, life was, unfortunately, not that simple or convenient. There were official details she needed to attend to before those wonderful times could begin. "Could it be tomorrow instead? I need to speak with Sister Julianne and, I…" She gazed down at herself and back up at him. "I need to find other clothes to wear."
"Yes of course; I don't want you to feel rushed."
She nodded and then, feeling unsure of what to do with herself, reached out for the clipboard once again. She'd barely picked it up when he slid it out of her hands, giving her a kind look. "You do not need to continue helping if you have so much you need to do."
She felt her cheeks turning warm. "Oh. I…I came to help because I wanted to spend some time with you, but I suppose there will be plenty of time for that now."
He grinned. "Indeed, there will be."
"Then, I will go, but I'll see you tomorrow at church?" she asked. He nodded and then she quickly stepped forward and hugged him again. After a moment, she pulled away and bid him goodbye, though she found it a bit harder to walk away from him than normal, even knowing for certain what the future held for them.
She hardly remembered her journey back to Nonnatus; she felt as though she was completely in a daze. She felt so completely and deliriously happy until she reached the steps of Nonnatus and began to walk her bicycle back to the storage shed. Then, nerves and uncertainty began to fill her belly. She worried that Sister Julienne might be disappointed in her decision to leave her post with them. They had been making plans for how they could expand their services and she had just agreed to help the sister review applications for a new midwife position they had recently posted. The thought of disappointing someone she looked up to as much as she did to Sister Julienne made her stomach twist, yet she had to do it; the idea of having a life with Patrick simply meant too much.
Shelagh wrung her hands together as she walked through Nonnatus searching for her sisters. She found them in the sitting room where Sister Julienne was sorting through the post, Sister Evangelina was reading, and Trixie sat on the couch sewing a button onto one of her blouses. When she walked into the room, Trixie looked up and said, "Oh, you're back so soon. Did you finish the inventory already?"
"I," the sister began, but as nerves bubbled over inside of her, she found she could not answer Trixie's question, but instead rushed out, "I kissed Dr. Turner."
Trixie's jaw dropped in shock while Sister Evangelina proclaimed, "Finally!"
"Sister!" Sister Julienne scolded as shock settled into Shelagh's bones.
"What does that mean?"
Dropping her book into her lap, Sister Evangelina said, "We have been waiting for you two to figure out you're in love with each other for months—the madness can finally stop!"
Shelagh was vaguely aware of a buzzing sound in her ears as the utter astonishment of that moment settled around her. She was able to stumble her way over to the couch and sat down hard beside Trixie, her jaw hanging slightly agape.
"Are you in love?" the midwife asked her kindly.
"I-I've agreed to marry him," she said distantly. Then, when she saw the pleased look on Sister Julienne's face, her stomach clenched. She placed her hand over her belly, sighing out, "You knew. You all knew? You must have thought me foolish."
"A bit," Sister Evangelina said while Trixie assured her, "Not at all!"
Sister Julienne leaned forward in her seat and told her, "We knew you would come together at the time God deemed best. After all, he brought you both to this place for a reason, but you needed to come to understand that reason in your own time. This is why I was so lenient with you about abiding our rules."
Shelagh blanched. "Oh, I shouldn't have received special treatment!" As embarrassed as it made her feel, she was glad to finally know the reason why the elder sister had not previously spoken to her about her behavior. She'd been curious for a while, but had not wanted to ask about it, because she knew doing so would force her to own up to the real reason why she was spending so much time with Patrick and Timothy, and she had not yet been ready to face that mostly for fear she'd have to stop.
Sister Julienne's kind expression never wavered. "But it was God's will for you, Dr. Turner, and Timothy to form a family. Allowing that to take place in its own time was a privilege, and a joy. I could not in good conscience have stopped you."
Seeing the grin on Trixie's face and the almost smile on Sister Evangelina's, Shelagh leaned back against the couch and took a few moments to reflect on this new information. Knowing that her sisters also believed her relationship with Patrick was God's will made her feel even more content with the decision. She truly had never known such happiness.
"After everything that had happened to us over the years, I told myself I wasn't sure it was God's will, but I think I knew something had changed when he arrived here in Poplar. Still, I was afraid to acknowledge it, especially because my feelings for him had always been so strong, but I am not anymore. I'm ready to be with him—to be a family with him."
"Oh!" Trixie gushed, tears visible in her eyes, "We are so happy for you!" Then she reached out to pull Shelagh into a hug, which she reciprocated. Then, she looked over to Sister Julienne, who stood and reached out a hand to her so they could do what was necessary to transition her from the life of a nun to one of a future wife.